This is also what both Break and Vincent do, as a consequence of having been influenced by their respective “devils.” The word generally has different connotations when used for women vs. Just for absolute clarity, to “white knight” means to put yourself in positions of conflict out of the egotistical desire to be viewed as a savior. The reason this particular line is important though is because of who precisely Break’s illegal Chain was and what he represented– that is, the White Knight. Both, out of a hope to save their loved ones, begin to sacrifice others while believing their actions would eventually be undone. Break and Vincent’s characters parallel one another in a number of ways- both are manipulative, deliberately offputting, living in anticipation of their death (as was Lacie… that’s another post, though). There’s one other instance of a character claiming to have been spoken to by the Devil.īreak, in reference to his illegally contracted Chain, claims to have been spoken to by the devil. A good part is how Vincent refers to her. There are a number of reasons why I believe Miranda is a reflection of Vincent, as opposed to simply someone who traumatized him, however. Her narrative role, however, cannot be separated from Vincent’s, and her arc is intended as a supplement to his. Multiple characters interact with her and acknowledge her existence, even those who presumably had no idea who Vincent was. I’m not saying that Miranda isn’t “real” within the context of the story, exactly. The thing about this line about Miranda being implicitly about Vincent is it sheds a lot of light on how I think the two are meant to be read– not as two, completely separate, narratively distinct characters, but with Miranda as a reflection of Vincent’s own character. If Oswald’s line, which originally does not specifically reference any single subject, was only intended to be about Miranda, why put it against Vincent, with Demios notably out of view? Why follow it with a panel of Vincent as a child, asserting it had to have been Miranda? If you were to show a Japanese speaker that panel out of context, they’d immediately assume the person being talked about was Vincent. Oswald’s lack of specificity regarding subject in Japanese was, based on framing, probably intentional, at least from the narrative’s perspective. The line was definitely about Miranda in context, but no female subject is mentioned until Vincent’s following line “あの女だ…悪いのはぜんぶあの女なんだ…” ( ano onna da… warui no wa zenbu ano onna nanda…, official translation is basically literal) “This is how she was transformed.” is not an inaccurate translation of このような形になってしまうのか, definitely, but I don’t think it carries the full nuance of the original line. To clarify, the original line was “このような形になってしまうのか” ( kono you na katachi ni natteshimau no ka, literally closer to “this is the kind of form that has come to be taken”), which does not specify an object. Rereading the official translation and coming across this line made me remember a particular nuance I think Kimura’s translation erases in the use of a gendered pronoun in Oswald’s line here.
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